The evolution of inflators for automotive inflatable safety systems has resulted in the development of pressurized gas-only inflators, propellant-only inflators, and hybrid inflators. There are of course many design considerations for each of the above-noted types of inflators. In all three systems, two primary design considerations are that the air/safety bag must be expanded a predetermined amount in a predetermined amount of time in order to be operationally effective. As such, substantial development efforts have been directed to how the flow path is established between the inflator and the air/safety bag and how the subsequent flow is provided to the air/safety bag such that the above-identified objectives can be met. In hybrid inflators, which utilize both a release of a stored, pressurized gas and an ignition of a heat-generating material, such as a propellant, the manner of establishing the flow path to the air/safety bag and the manner of igniting the propellant must both be addressed in a way which meets the above-noted objectives.